How to Prove God Exists

For
unbelievers, there are only a few ways to prove that God exists,
depending on how willing they are to accept God's existence. For
unbelievers who are willing to believe in God, they often only need to
be told about God and Jesus Christ in order to believe. This group makes
up a large portion of unbelievers, and it is why missionaries are often so successful.

God will then prove his own existence to these unbelievers, because they are willing to receive his evidence of answered prayers.

According to Paul, no one has an excuse to not believe, because God's creation is evidence enough. Paul says, "For
the invisible things of him since the creation of the world are clearly
seen, being perceived through the things that are made, even his
everlasting power and divinity; that they may be without excuse." (Romans 1:20 WEB)

Truly the creation of the world, and the fact that the entire
universe exists within extremely narrow boundaries of physics, is plenty
of evidence even for
highly knowledgeable individuals (i.e. scientists). This is why there are some scientists who believe in Intelligent Design.

Proving God Exists to Doubters

However, on
the other end of the unbelief spectrum, there are some unbelievers who
will refuse to believe unless they see an impossible miracle happen
before their eyes. There are even some people who would still refuse to
believe, even if they witnessed a miracle. They would be convinced it was a trick.

When Paul witnessed to the Corinthians, he says that those who
believed had become Christians because of the power and miracles of the
Holy Spirit, rather than his words. "My speech and my
preaching were not in persuasive words of human wisdom, but in
demonstration of the Spirit and of power, that your faith wouldn't stand
in the wisdom of men, but in the power of God." (1 Corinthians 2:4-5 WEB)

However, there were likely people who saw these miracles and
still did not believe. For these unbelievers, they will not believe no matter what they see, and there is nothing we can do to convince them.

God will have to convince them, although in reality all conversions are the work of
God's Spirit anyway. Paul explains, "I planted. Apollos
watered. But God gave the increase. So then neither he who plants is
anything, nor he who waters, but God who gives the increase." (1 Corinthians 3:6-7 WEB)

Everyone will be convinced eventually, when they are face-to-face with God on judgment day, but it will be too late for salvation then.

Proving God Exists with Logic

Unlike these extreme
doubters, there is a group of unbelievers who are in between these two
extremes described above. These unbelievers can be convinced with a logical progression
of thoughts that answer questions they have about God's existence.

The following is one example of how to prove that God exists to one of these unbelievers who can be convinced with logic.

If a God does exist, might he communicate with people?

Yes, if a God does exist, then it is reasonable that he may want to
communicate with people. Pretend you are God and you created people.
Would you want to talk to them? Maybe you do not feel the same about people as
God does, so instead of people, imagine that you created a bunch of
kittens or puppies. How do you feel about them? If you have the capacity
to communicate with them, would you? What might your message to them
be? Would you want them to hurt each other?

If a God does exist, and he wanted to communicate to people, then how might he communicate?

If a God
does exist, what options does he have? Would he communicate with people
by talking directly to them? What other options are there for him to
talk to someone?

Not only is it reasonable that God would talk to
people, but it is also reasonable that he would communicate in a way
that makes sense to the individual. Otherwise, God's communications
would be pointless if he speaks in a foreign language or in concepts the
individual does not understand.

Now consider, if God appeared before you in bodily form and
spoke to you, would you tell others? Or consider it like this: If a giant
angel appeared before you and spoke to you, would you tell others?

You might think that you would be hesitant to tell others,
because maybe no one would believe you. However, when something
unbelievable happens to us, the typical human response is to tell
everyone. "You wouldn't believe what just happened!" or "You're not
going to believe this, but..."

If you met with the Creator
of the universe, it is reasonable that a person would want to tell
everyone, just as you would tell people if you met someone famous.
Likewise, if you felt this interaction was extremely important, then it
is also reasonable that you would want future generations to know about
it.

However, how would you tell someone in the future of your
experience? There are not very many options for communicating to future
generations. We know throughout history that people wrote things down,
and even now people continue to write things down to preserve their
thoughts and experiences.

If an immortal God does exist, is it reasonable that he would be consistent over the course of thousands of years?

Let's imagine that God wanted to tell people something, so
he tells one person and instructs them to tell everyone else. However,
no one believes the person and they ignore the message. Then, several
hundred years later, God tries again. A few people
believe the person, but most people do not believe. This process repeats
itself, and eventually there are a collection of writings regarding
each person's experience with this God.

If God does exist and is immortal, is this flow of events
reasonable?

Yes, if God has tried to communicate with people, then it is
reasonable that people might write their experiences down. Furthermore,
it is reasonable that eventually there might be a collection of these
interactions spread out throughout hundreds or even thousands of years.
Additionally, it is reasonable that the "God-character" in these writings
would be consistent.

However, what if not all the writings agree? These individuals
are all witnesses to a self-proclaimed experience with God, so who do
you believe when the witnesses disagree about God?

Who do you believe when witnesses disagree?

Imagine that you are a police officer and you arrive at a car
accident. There are five people
who saw the car accident happen. All of these people are complete
strangers to each other: no one has ever met anyone else before. Four of
these people have the exact same story about how the car accident
happened. However, the fifth person disagrees completely with the other
four.

Who do you believe? Let's say that the evidence from the car
accident could support either story. Do you believe the four people who
have similar stories about what happened? Or do you believe the one
person who disagrees completely?

While it is actually very unreasonable to believe the fifth
person, what if you find out that the fifth person actually showed up
several minutes after the accident happened? Meaning, the fifth person
did not actually see the accident. Or what if the fifth person saw the
accident from really far away, while the other four were right there
when the accident happened?

Would you believe the fifth person? Or would you believe the other four
people, who all agree on a very similar order of event?

Now, let's consider the Bible.

The Witnesses of the Bible

The Bible is
a collection of books and letters that were authored at different times
in history. However, God is depicted as having the same message, while
the people are described as not listening to the message. Meaning, the
people are often made to look like fools, with the exception of a few
characters who understand God's message and live accordingly.

God's message in the Bible is this:

Disobeying God is bad – so
bad that it deserves death because it opposes the giver of life; God
asks people to stop sinning or else the natural consequence is death;
People continue to do bad things (like kill others, assaulting others,
stealing, etc.) and this makes God very angry, because God does not want
people to hurt you, nor does he want you to hurt others; God warns
people to return to obeying him or else they will die; God promises
people that if they return to obeying him, he will forgive them;
however, God says that forgiveness is not easy – sin deserves death, so
something has to die to pay the price for sin; God tells people to
sacrifice animals, but animal deaths do not truly rid people of sins;
God enters into a human body, and "dies" to cover the sins of all
people; however, his message still does not change – return to obeying
me, or you will die from your sins. The only difference is that now
salvation is possible (Matthew 19:25-26) because God's death has paid
the price for our sins, so when we return to obeying God it is as if we
had never disobeyed (Romans 3:25; 2 Peter 1:9)

All this happens over the course of thousands of years, but the
message stays the same. Oftentimes, people are described as not
understanding the message, yet it still remains the same.

The Bible vs Other Religions

Now, let's consider other witnesses.

Consider that about 600 years after this final event, where God "dies"
for people to remove their sins, another man claims to have interacted
with God. However, this new man's message is much different – his
message is to kill those who are unbelieving.

Really, this second
message sounds kind of similar, except that it's a twisted version of
the original message that has been consistent for thousands of years.

Whereas the message of the Bible is that God hates evil
(killing, stealing, assaulting others, etc.) and that the consequence of
these actions is death, the message of this person who comes 600 years
later is that people should take joy in killing those who refuse to
believe. In fact, according to this new man, it is a form of worship to
kill those who choose not to believe in God.

This was Paul's error. He too believed that he was worshiping God by killing Christians, until he came face-to-face with Jesus
Christ (Acts 9). And actually, it is Jesus Christ who warned this would happen saying, "Yes, the time comes that whoever kills you will think that he offers service to God." (John 16:2 WEB)

Rather than unbelievers killing the believer, this last man says
that believers should kill the unbelievers - again a twisted version of
the original message.

In addition to this twisted message, this new man also says it
is not enough to believe in a God only. According to this man, people
have to adopt the exact faith of this last man in order to be considered
believers, even though this set of beliefs is quite different from the
other 39 witnesses of the Bible who communicated the same message over
the course of roughly 1,500 years.

This man who comes 600 years later is the founder of Islam.

Remember that car accident we were discussing?

Imagine if 39 people saw the car accident happen and all agree
about how it happened, then someone else comes late and communicates a
twisted version of the
story. Who do you believe? Keep in mind that ALL of these people are
strangers to you.

No one is alive today who has met any of these people in the Bible, including the one who came 600 years late.

Logical Questions

For some
people, this series of questions will lead them to realize that it is
reasonable that God exists. However, others may have still more
questions about God that need to be answered in order for them to
believe.

Many people are comfortable with their current beliefs, so they are
unwilling to consider a new belief system. To them, belief is how they
want to view the world, instead of learning what is true about the
world. For Christians, we know that the Bible teaches about the truth of
the world. We also know that anyone who refused to return to God will
be doomed to an eternal death (Revelation 2:11).

Many people are unwilling to believe simply because
they are unaware of what is true. Instead, they choose to believe what
is most convenient for them, unaware that one day they will come
face-to-face with what is true whether the want to or not.

Verse of the Week

"For the time will come when they will not listen to the sound doctrine..." (2 Timothy 4:3 WEB)